“Come now!” “I need this asap!”

Dearly Beloved,

“Come now!” “I need this asap!” It sometimes feels like everything is urgent.

I once worked closely with the chairman of a board, who I usually did not hear from until the day before the monthly meeting. Then, in anticipation of the agenda he would think of several new ideas he wanted me to prepare for the following day. It meant setting aside important things, to work on the new plans. Most often we never implemented the new ideas. After a few months of this I said, “This is not working.”

Charles Hummel wrote a book called, The Tyranny of the Urgent. All of us have things which are urgent and things which are important. The danger is that we let the urgent crowd out the important. We gravitate to the urgent because the important seldom must be done today, or even this week.

We are currently in a sermon series called, “Make Room.” We are focusing on making room for the important things we are called to. These are Jesus, Sundays, DNA relationships, and Gospel Intentionality Together. So how do we ensure we make room for these important priorities? A significant part of the solution is not falling to the tyranny of the urgent.

Jesus remained true to the important. In Mark 1 Jesus went off by Himself to pray. The disciples came to Jesus with the urgent message, “Everyone is looking for you!” The disciples thought Jesus should go to those who wanted Him. It seemed like an opportunity to do good. Instead, Jesus said, “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” Jesus did not give in to what people wanted Him to do. Jesus did the important work the Father called Him to.

So how do we make room for the important? A helpful strategy is to think of things in four categories. First are things which are both important and urgent. Emergencies fall in this category. If something is both important and urgent, it may be right to do it asap even though it means dropping everything else.

Second are things which are important, but not urgent. These may include time for a relationship, cleaning your gutters before winter, and commitment to your savings plan. These things may not need to be done today, but unless we prioritize them relationships suffer and the rains come and overflow our clogged gutters. For us in CPC the important things to make room for are the four things we are called to.

Third are things that are urgent, but less important. Some people make everything seem like they need to happen right away. A family member may say you need to pick up milk and bread or they will starve, even though there is enough for another four days. Not everything, or everyone, calling for attention needs to be done right away, and some things don’t need to be done at all, at least not by you.

The fourth category are things not important, or at least of minor importance, and not urgent.

Most of us know to do first things asap, and leave fourth category things to last. But many of us struggle with the order of second and third things. It is hard not to respond to others’ expectations, and even our own sense of what is urgent. However, when we allow ourselves to do the third things second, we may fail at the important. When we focus on the important, we are much more likely to be successful.

Remember, Jesus did not give in to the demands people made of Him. By not giving in to the urgent, Jesus made room for the important. In case you wonder if this strategy worked, you should know that at the end of His life Jesus said He had completed the work the Father had given Him to do (John 17:4). Jesus fulfilled His calling by making room for the important.

Jesus’ plan for us is that our lives will be abundant and full. We receive this as we make room for the important things the Father calls us to.